THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As part of the World Sight Day on October 12, Thursday, a novel programme called ‘Blind walk 2017’ will be organised in the capital city under the aegis of Project Vision, a Bengaluru-based NGO.
Blind Walk will be conducted in 200 locations on the same day across five countries.
Fr George Kannanthanam, founder director Project Vision and Maxi Viswas Mena, co-ordinator said in a statement that over 1 lakh people will walk blind-folded during the programme.
In Thiruvananthapuram blind walk will start from Kanakakunnu Palace ground at 7.30 am and culminate at Mother Teresa Hall, Palayam. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will read out the eye donation pledge.
As per the programme a blind person will lead five blind-folded people. 100 such teams will participate in the event. There will blind walk held in 68 centres in the state. The programme is organised to encourage eye donation. The blind walk started four years back. Already 100 such programmes have been conducted at 55 centres in countires like United States, China, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
The Project Vision was started in response to a great human suffering. The statistics regarding the number of persons who are visually challenged are very touching for anyone who is socially concerned - 39 million completely blind among the 263 million who are visually impaired globally. For anyone from India, there is an additional shocking information - one third of the worlds visually challenged people live in India (15 million). That figure works out to be roughly a little more than one percent of the population.
Project Vision was founded by George Kannanthanam, Catholic priest and social worker, who lived for 12 years with persons who had lost their sight completely .